There’s no way around it: Infertility just plain sucks when you’re trying to conceive. Other than seeking reproductive assistance, there’s usually nothing you can do to help—and that feeling of powerlessness just makes it even harder.

Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan unfortunately knows that feeling. Back in April, she revealed on Dancing with the Stars that she had gone through six miscarriages after having her oldest son, which made her feel “like a failure.” And just recently, she told Boston that her miscarriages made her feel like her body was disobeying her.

“I think that was why I felt so bad,” she told the magazine. “It’s like, can’t you train for this? What can I do to make it right?” She ended up having two more children through IVF, and now says she wants to raise awareness about infertility and miscarriage to help other women who are struggling.

“When you don’t talk about it, you don’t realize how many people this has happened to,” she says. “Keeping things hidden and to yourself can lead to so much sadness and depression.”

Unfortunately, miscarriages happen more often than you might realize.

Up to 25 percent of all clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the American Pregnancy Association. However, just 1 percent of women will have two or more consecutive miscarriages, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) explains, adding that most miscarriages occur randomly when an embryo receives an abnormal number of chromosomes during fertilization. “This type of genetic problem happens by chance; there is no medical condition that causes it,” the organization says on its website. And in up to 75% of repeated miscarriages, no conclusive cause is ever found.

Having a miscarriage doesn't necessarily mean you're infertile (a miscarriage can be a sign of trouble maintaining a pregnancy rather that becoming pregnant). But having repeated miscarriages is a sign that you may be dealing with a condition that's affecting your fertility.

Kerrigan’s feeling that her body was failing her is common among women going through miscarriages and infertility.

It makes sense: You get to a certain point in life and you realize that hard work and perseverance is what it takes to reach your goals—but fertility doesn’t always work that way.

The process can be frustrating and confusing because it doesn’t make sense, Dr. Birndorf says. “Women often feel like, ‘Why is my body doing this to me?’” Michael Silverman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells SELF

Fertility struggles are hard because you’re pouring your heart and soul into one thing and getting nothing in return, Tamar Gur, M.D., a women's health expert and reproductive psychiatrist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF. “It’s incredibly painful.”

You can’t change the status quo, but you can change the way you view things.

First and foremost, whatever you're feeling—pissed off, bummed out, or frustrated that your journey to motherhood isn’t as seamless as you’d hoped it would be—is OK, Dr. Birndorf says. “Some of it is just trying to figure out how to accept the current circumstances for what they are,” she says.

It’s also important to make sure you have a “same team” mentality with your partner, if you have one, Dr. Silverman says. “Communication with your partner is the most important thing,” he says, pointing out that couples can develop depression, anxiety, and stress as a result of struggling to conceive. “Remind yourselves that you’re in this together and you’ll come to a conclusion on this together,” he says.

Given that fertility can be all-consuming, Dr. Gur recommends that women take some of the energy they’re spending on trying to conceive and investing it in other areas of their life. For example, if you already have a child, try to do little things to spend more time on them. If you don’t have a child, look into volunteering. That doesn't mean you should stop trying, she says—you can just spend some of the two hours you spent on fertility websites doing something that will make you feel good. “Getting positive feedback in another area of your life can help remind you that you aren’t powerless,” Dr. Gur says.

But cutting yourself some major slack is really crucial, Dr. Birndorf says. If that's becoming challenging for you, though, it's worth checking in with a therapist to help you examine any negative thought patterns that have come up and develop new ways of dealing with them. You can’t change the fact that your road to pregnancy isn’t easy, but you can avoid (or learn to stop) mentally trashing yourself over something you can’t change.